


If It's Meant to Be, It Will Be

by cosmictrap



Series: Tumblr Prompts [6]
Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 13:18:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13548147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmictrap/pseuds/cosmictrap
Summary: Prompt: Nick doesn't even leave to NOLA. Comes back almost as soon as he leaves. Season 5.





	If It's Meant to Be, It Will Be

Nick wants to thank Jess for whatever she’d said to Reagan that’s made Reagan want to be with him. As he excuses himself and walks over to Jess’s room, a small part of him is also curious about it, wondering what she could possibly have said to her about him.

He knocks on the door once, a warning, before he opens the door. At first, the room seems empty, and his brows furrow in confusion as he wonders where Jess is. And then he hears it; the softest of sniffles coming from the closet. Worried, he walks to the closet and sees her, still in the red dress, on the floor of one corner of her closet, knees drawn to her chest and her face buried between the crook of the knees. She’s sobbing silently, and Nick wonders if he should just pretend to not have seen her and back away quietly.

But he couldn’t do it.

Instead, he clears his throat and Jess is startled. Her face shoots up and she looks at him wide-eyed for a few seconds before bolting forward on her knees to throw the closet door closed.

“Don’t you knock!” she snaps from inside and her voice is hoarse.

From the brief glimpse of her face that he’s gotten, he knows she’s been crying for quite a while because he realizes he hasn’t seen her in the living area for a while now. Her face had been flushed red and her mascara was running.

“I did!” he says. “Jess-”

“Not loud enough!”

Nick frowns, wondering why she’s being that way. She seemed just fine some time ago….. Hadn’t she?

Then he remembers that Sam had broken up with her only last night, and he feels terrible for not having been there for her while she was helping him with Reagan.

He walks towards the closet door and knocks softly. “Jess, is everything alright?”

“Yes, Nick,” she says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Everything’s just peachy. I was only giving my eyes a cleanse. Because it’s just so much fun.”

“Jess, just-”

“No. I don’t want to talk to you about. Or to anybody” she snaps again. “Leave me alone, Nick.”

He wants to get annoyed at the tone she’s taking with him, but he finds himself worrying even more. Because since when did Jessica Day not want to talk about what was bothering her?

“Should I get Cece?” he asks warily.

“No. It’s her wedding day. Leave her be,” she says threateningly.

“Well, then I’m sure she’ll want her best friend around,” he says, hoping that would coax her to come out.

He knows she is claustrophobic and wonders if Jess even realizes that she was locked up in her closet. He’s worried that her panic would set in at any moment, and all the worry he was feeling should have turned into anger and annoyance, but it doesn’t.

“She’ll be fine without me for some time. Schmidt’s with her,” she says softly.

Nick is thoughtful. “Is that what this is-”

“What, Nick,  _no_! I’m happy for her! And I just feel like-” she pauses. “Look, I just want to be alone for now.”

“Alright,” he sighs defeatedly. “I’m here for you if you need anything.”

“ _Right_ ,” she chuckles, and the lack of mirth is quite evident. He wants to ask her what she means by that, but he knows that’d be of no use. Not right now, at least, and her tone only reminds him that he was considering leaving for New Orleans; he’s still unsure whether that is a good idea, and he’d been hoping to talk to Jess about it.

Instead, he simply says, “I mean it.”

She says nothing and after she hears his footsteps fade away, she steps out of the closet and bolts to lock the door of her bedroom. She leaves Cece a long message, explaining her absence and she’s sure Cece will understand why she needed some time to herself.

Then, she slips into bed and stares at the ceiling, her tired eyes refusing to fall asleep. Later in the night, she lets Cece into the room to say goodbye as she leaves for her honeymoon. She promises to explain everything when Cece returns and assures her that it’s “nothing major”.

Sometime early next morning, when Nick knocks on her door to tell her that he’s leaving to New Orleans with Reagan and didn’t have a chance to tell her earlier, she pretends to be asleep.

“I know you’re awake,” he says, after a few seconds of silence, but she says nothing.

She hears him sigh, and feels a little guilty, but doesn’t move out of her bed.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Jess steps out into what she assumes would be an empty loft. She finds on a note on her door from Winston explaining that he’ll be back in a week and that he had the best honeymoon prank for Schmidt and Cece. She laughs a little at that and is already imagining what Schmidt would have to say about that. Or Cece, for that matter.  

She walks into the living area and watches the first of morning light filter in through the windows for a few minutes. She feels tired and restless, and desperately wishes there was someone she could talk to. It takes a great amount of self-control to not call Cece, and she drags herself to the kitchen to make herself some coffee, hoping that’ll kickstart her into action. Halfway to the kitchen, she changes her mind and heads straight to the cupboard that stored her wine bottle. She decides that it’ll be probably be healthier if she got slightly drunk and watched  _Dirty Dancing_  instead of forcing herself not to think of the problem at hand.

_At least the problem is in New Orleans. For now._

Disappointed that there’s no icecream left in the fridge, she’s about to pour herself some of her wine, when she hears the door click open. She freezes, bottle hovering over her glass. She stares in the direction of the door and grunts in annoyance when she sees Nick step into the loft.

_What is this unforeseen and not at all needed twist!_

All she’d wanted was to sulk and cry in the empty loft and the cosmos was just being cruel to her. She watches mutely as Nick kicks off his shoes and marches to Jess’s bedroom, with a paperbag in his hand. He knocks on her door loudly, before yelling, “Jessica, I know you can hear me and I want you to open the door this instant!”

His voice snaps her back into reality and she shakes her head before pouring wine into her glass. She takes a sip, and continues to watch Nick thump the door to her bedroom harder because she’s still debating whether or not to make her presence known.

“Jess, open the door or I swear I will break it down!” he threatens.

Noting the seriousness in his voice, she clears her throat and he whirls to look at her. His eyes dart to the class of pink wine in his hand and the telling off he was about to give her for watching him while he was yelling himself sore, dies in his throat.

“Hey, Jess,” he says calmly, as she steps out from behind the kitchen counter and walks towards the TV to find the  _Dirty Dancing_  DVD after setting her wine glass on the coffee table.

“What’re you doing here?” she asks as she shuffles through the CDs.

“I couldn’t leave you,” he says quietly and sets the paperbag he was holding on to the coffee table before dropping into the couch.

She finds the _Dirty Dancing_  CD and turns to look at him, wide-eyed. “Nick, you didn’t have to. I’m fine.”

He raises his eyebrows and looks skeptically at the wine glass and at the CD in her hand. She flushes slightly, but says nothing as she puts the CD in the DVR and proceeds to sit on the couch.

“You didn’t have to,” she repeats, as she turns on the TV. “I’m sorry I behaved the way I did, but I would’ve been… I am fine. You should go find Reagan.”

“No, I mean I  _couldn’t_  leave  _you_ ,” he says again, with more emphasis as he looks at her sideways.

She turns to look at him and he holds her gaze. They stare at each other for a few seconds and he has a small debate with himself before he decides to take the jump to scoot a little closer to her. He sees something change in her eyes, but she doesn’t move away. She simply turns to look at the TV again, but he can tell she’s not really watching.

He wonders if he’s imagining the slight shift in the air, but he tries not to dwell too much on that. He feels a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth, and he tries to watch TV too.

Not taking his eyes off the screen, he says, “I got you ice cream. Strawberry.”

She chuckles very quietly and bends forward to grab the paperbag off the coffee table. She hops off the couch to go to the kitchen and comes back with a spoon before dropping back on the couch. She sits closer to him than before and sets the bowl in her lap before offering him another spoon, eyes not leaving the screen. He takes it from her and bridges the remaining gap between of them. As he digs into the bowl in her lap, he hesitantly throws an arm around her shoulder. She stiffens a little, but only for a second before relaxing into him.

There’s a lot left unsaid, but that could wait. They spend the rest of the morning watching  _Dirty Dancing_  in silence, breaking it only once to sing along to the  _Time of My Life._

* * *

 

**_Send me a prompt[here](https://cosmictrap.tumblr.com/ask) or leave one in the comments, if you'd like!!! :)_ **

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